Sometimes on Fridays I will spend the morning working at Barnes and Nobles. And now that the kids are out of school they will most often accompany me. They love it. For the most part they read and when they get bored they might break out their gameboys.
Did you catch that? They start with reading! I almost never see them playing with their gameboys at B&N! At least that’s one Borg in our culture that hasn’t yet assimilated them.
But, there was another sad commentary that the ‘gameboys’ helped bring to light for us. You see, when we got all the way home (about a 30 minute drive) my daughter panicked.
“I left my gameboy at Barnes and Nobles! We have to go back and get it!”
“No way,” I said—just as any encouraging dad would. That’s an hour of driving. I told you to take care of that thing and not leave it laying around. The chances of it still being there are “zip!”
Nathan added, “Yeah, zero. It’s gone. But don’t cry Juliana. If you’re really, really, really, really, really, really (insert about 100 more reallys here) good, I might let you use mine for a minute or two. Not my good one, but my semi-broken one.
If you can get it to stay on for more than a few seconds. I think it has some kind of short. Anyways, yours is gone. That much is certain.
When we got home she ran up to her mom and cried for her to go and get it. She couldn’t either. She was on her way out the door in the opposite direction. She did; however, suggest we pray.
And why not. We serve a God of great big things but does that mean He has no time for the little things? So many times Christians talk about God like He’s one or the other but God is omniscient so we actually aren’t forced to think that asking God for gameboys to not be stolen somehow diverts some of His power currently being directed to feeding the destitute in
He can (and does) concern Him self with both. And it has zero affect on his omniscience.
Zero.
Well, I couldn’t very well let my little girl deflate before my very eyes, so I agreed to at least call B&N to see if they’d seen the thing.
They agreed to look and also agreed that it would be difficult to miss a bright pink gameboy.
I’m sure it only took moments for the lady to return to the phone, but it seemed (gauging by the intense look on my daughter’s face) to take eons. Then, when she returned her voice sounded completely shocked. You’d a thought by her reaction that she’d a been left in 40 degree water all night and was in the last stages of hypothermia.
“I found it! You can tell your daughter that she is one LUCKY little girl.”
How sad.
How sad that nearly everyone simply expects people to steal. “Finders Keepers,” they say.
What ever happened to people like Abe Lincoln walking 5 miles to return a nickel?
Anyway, I have a different theory and it makes me hope the best, trust for the best and love greatly.
I believe it was just another kind gesture from our heavenly Father to one of His littlest children.
“Thank you, Lord that nothing is too small for You.”